The Malayan U Boat Part 19

“Captain, from the sonar signature, sound and range, we believe that is one of the midget Japanese submarines. It must have detected out sonar signatures and may have decided to investigate the sound. It is moving towards our current location. We can outrun them quite easily but that would give our positions away.”

“I did not know that the Japanese midget submarines have a very advance sonar system. What I understand from Admiral Kantz is that only a very crude layout of the German midget U Boat design was given to the Japanese Imperial Navy as a sign of good will. We never provided our design of sonar system”

“Well, captain, the Japanese could have designed the sonar system themselves or perhaps got it from espionage. We know that the Royal Navy had a crude sonar system on board their World War One era battle cruisers and certainly a modern version was installed in the newer naval vessels.”

“Yes, the question is if the midget submarine has sonar capabilities, will it also have torpedo launching capabilities?” asked the captain in a doubtful manner

“How long it will take before the midget submarine is within its firing range?”

“Judging by the speed between the midget submarine and our current speed, it will take another thirty minutes before it will be its firing range”

“Ok, let’s take evasive action – increase the speed but gently and do a big S curve move and see whether the midget submarine still continue to follow us. At the same time, take us to a deeper depth. The midget submarine does not have the same thickness of steel that the larger U Boat have. I don’t think they will dare to follow us on that depth. We can take more evasive action at the deeper depth and we may be able to shake off the midget submarine. We do not want to come to a point that we may need to attack the midget submarine to conceal our existence” ordered the captain

The U X dived deeper and used the terrain following sonar to navigate the sea bed. The midget submarine as expected did not follow the U X to the same dept but continued to follow the path of the U Boat at the shallower depth. This way U X was making a gain over the midget submarine as the sonar signature of U X at the deeper depth was extremely low for the midget submarine to detect. In time, the midget submarine had lost the tracking of U X completely and U X was able to break way from the midget submarine’s chase. But the captain was sure that the midget submarine would have reported the existence of a large unidentified vessel that sped off in a deeper depth.

By the time U X reached the south part of the peninsular of Malaya, there were reports of multiple surface vessels from the sonar operators. Some are very large vessel boats which the sonar operator was able to detect. Based on the size of the sonar signatures, it was concluded that these are Japanese aircraft carriers which had docked in the naval port of Singapore. The captain did his best to avoid any detection of the German U Boat by the aircraft carriers fleet which sure included anti submarine ships. The captain had to route the path of the U X to pass the Indonesian islands before heading back to the Malayan waters.

Professor Z and his team were able to identify the location of the ancient submarine after several weeks of doing research. They were clearly not happy about their forced confinement but that did not stop them from completing their research. The captain had to take extra precautions. Obviously the reason was due to heavy Japanese Imperial Navy vessel patrols but the fact that Malaya was occupied by the Japanese Eastern Army compounded the risk of the U X will be detected when it surfaces.

It was night when U X reached the estimated location of the ancient submarine. U X stopped three nautical miles from the shore and surfaced to the periscope level. The sonar detection reveals no other ships in the vicinity. It was raining heavily – U X has reached at the time when Malaya was experiencing its yearly tropical monsoon season.

“Get Sergeant R and his team to the briefing room and get the Professor Z in also” instructed Captain Franz to Ernst

All key personals were assembled in the operation briefing room and that included Sergeant R’s specialised extraction team. The captain stood in front and waited for everyone to take their seat. The scientists were relieved to be let off from their quarters but despite that, the security is still tight.

“Gentlemen, we have reached to the final destination point, as deduced by the Professor Z’s team. Sergeant R – please get your team ready. It is night time now and it is raining very heavily. Right in front of us is the opening of a large river among dense jungle. The time is perfect for your team to move from U X and take your positions at the river start. We have a divers hatch up and ready and a small rubber boat waiting for your use. The coast is clear; we have not detected any ships in the area. You have thirty minutes to get ready and leave”

Everyone dismissed and get back to their work. Sergeant R and his team moved quickly to get into their camouflage gears and commando packs. They took sub machine guns from the weapons room and other gears. They painted their faces black for the cover of the night and soon they were quick to assemble at the diver hatch point. The diver hatch point has been specially designed for Special Forces operations in German U Boats. It allows commandos to leave the U Boat and reach for their special rubber boats for coastal surprise attacks. The diver hatch allows the U Boat to dispatch the commandos without the need to surface completely.

Sergeants R was the first one to climb into the diver hatch and moved to the surface and got the boat ready. Soon, he and his men were rowing the boat in the dark towards the land. They kept the profile very low and aware of any movement on the beach. Their trained eyes coupled with their armed guns were focusing on what’s ahead of them. The fact that it was raining hard did not bothered them. They were after all were seasoned commandos who have been in more dangerous situation.

The team landed on beach safely and without making any noise. Whatever noise that may be there was muzzled by the sound of the rain and thunder. They quickly hide their small boats and some of their gears in thick undergrowth and walked towards the opening of the river. According to the Professor Z’s estimation, the ancient submarine is buried about four hundred meters from the opening but the actual area of the ancient submarine is not determined. Sergeant R and his men walked along the river bed in the dark but soon decided to wait until the morning as it was too dangerous for them to continue in the dark. Sergeant R radioed back to the U Boat was waiting for them several miles away from the coast and informed them of their decision. The rain did not let down throughout the night but the team managed to constructed a makeshift shelter for the night.

The next morning, the team got up early and continued their journey along the river bed. Thick jungle was all around them. It appears that they could be the first humans to have walked in this area for a long time. From the river side, there was no sign of any submarines buried at this area. Perhaps this could be just a myth and perhaps there is no such thing as ancient submarines. Sergeant R have a feeling that his team may need to spend more time if they were find this burial place. They continued their journey deep into the jungle where the river continued to flow. Suddenly on the right side of the river, deep in the jungle, they found a large landfill, covered with ancient mud and are in the same length of a large U Boat. Could this be it? Sergeant R and his men dropped their gears and started with the extraction work.

To be on the safe side, Sergeant R got two of his men to set up a security perimeter with simple personal landmines buried at several areas surrounding the extraction area. These personal landmines, a personal favourite of the German Special Forces does not detonate unnecessarily – it only detonates if a human being steps on it.Should anyone decide to come close to the extraction area; they will have their hands full disarming the mines. By then, the extraction team would have gotten early warning to set up their attacking points.

Meantime Sergeant R and rest of his men started to excavate the ancient mud and soon hit something metallic. The metal was black in colour. The men continued to dig along the length of the submarine until they found that looks like a hatch. It was closed firmly but Sergeant R was surprised that after all these years, the hatch was not rusted and seems to be in good working condition. They used their tools to open the hatch and a loud metal clicking together sound was heard and the hatch slowly opened. The men moved back as foul air from the inside of the submarine burst out. Only a small portion of the area has been dug and cleared. The rest of the submarine was still buried under tonnes of mud and river sand. Sergeant R looked into the hatch and it was pitch dark inside. No one knew what was lurking in the dark pitch of the submarine.

The specialised extraction team waited for several minutes before it was decided that they need to explore the depth of the submarine interiors. There was a ladder leading from the opening of the hatch and continued to the depth of the submarine. Sergeant R dropped a special light into the hatch and that lighted the interiors. They could see that there was a flat area at the bottom and it looked clean – a surprise considering that the submarine been here for several thousand years. No one wanted to be the first to venture into the interior of the submarine but there was no time to lose. Sergeant R took his gun and walked down the staircase with his submachine gun trained to the interior. He reached the bottom of the staircase and stood at the ground. Rest of his men took turns and soon joined him.

The area where they stood looked like a control area. There were many control panels and in some of them, the lights were still on. It was as if the submarine was still alive with energy. The team was careful not to touch anything and continued to explore the vessel in the dark. The vessel seems to have motion sensors for lights light up whenever they passed certain areas. At first, this starlet the team but as they continued with their search, they got used to the motion sensors.

“Sergeant, look at this” called one of the men looking at something on the wall.

Sergeant R walked to where his man was standing and saw the same thing. He could not believe what he was seeing – a flag of the United States of America. So, it was true then, that the Americans have finally had an edge over the German on the U Boat technology.

“Sergeant, over here” remarked another.

The words on the door indicated that it was the captain’s quarters – the captain of USS Arizona. Sergeant R opened the door slowly and found fragments of skeleton on the bed. There were some books on the table but it looked very fragile, the extraction team did not risk the destruction of it by touching it. Perhaps it will be better if it is left to the scientists to handle the interpretation of these books. The team carefully wrapped the books in a special container which was water proof. They found more books in the control room – these looked more like manuals.

The men found more skeletons in the other rooms. In total, they found about ten skeletons. There were other areas that need to be explored but the Sergeant R decided to wait until the books and manuals are interpreted. It was almost evening by the team have searched some of the rooms in the submarine. So far they have found the torpedo and the communication rooms. Both was in complete darkness and in the darkness, nothing seemed to be in working orders. Sergeant R and his men went out from the submarine and towards their makeshift shelter and had their meals. The hatch was reclosed and plans were made to walk back to the beach and thereafter to the U Boat which was waiting for them. They radioed the captain and informed him on their plans. The captain informed that they have not detected any ships in the vicinity and they will be on standby to receive the specialised extraction team.

As they are not familiar with operations in dense tropical jungle, the team decided not to leave any men behind to secure the extraction area. They concluded that the area is safe enough to be left alone for now. Besides they have left enough personal landmines which will take care of any intruders to the extraction area. Their plans for the night was to travel to the diver hatch point and embark into the U X and pass over their findings to the scientists. It’s better to understand what is inside the ancient submarine before they enter the submarine again.

The travel back to the submarine was done without much hassle and certainly Professor Z and his team was very excited to get the books and manuals from the ancient submarine. No time was wasted on the start of reading the books and manuals. The books and manuals were very fragile and the scientists were afraid that they may not be able to save the books and manuals from destruction. That was until one of the scientists informed them of a new technique to save fragile artefacts. Plans was quickly made up to resent back the extraction team back to the coast under the cover of the night and interpretations of the books and manuals would be conveyed to the team by a special coding machine almost alike the Enigma machine.

Sergeant R’s team went back to the coast and set up their camp nearer to the extraction site. To avoid confrontation with any animals in the jungle, camp was setup above the ground level and the whole area was rigged with a crude early warning system. They have to wait for the morning before they can return to the submarine and hopefully they would have enough information to start the search in the morning.